


a single truth

by dottie_wan_kenobi



Series: Harry Potter (series) Fics [7]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Gen Work, Hogwarts Second Year, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Nesting, POV James Potter, Werewolf Remus Lupin, Werewolf Reveal, peter pettigrew friendly, sort of....james just has thoughts okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:00:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25584010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dottie_wan_kenobi/pseuds/dottie_wan_kenobi
Summary: Pulling back the curtains, he doesn’t find the neat bed he’s come to expect from Remus. No, it’s just the opposite—a complete mess, four pillows making something of a circle around the whole mattress, a fifth hidden haphazardly beneath James’ summer quilt. It’s unmistakably his, the mix of colors very familiar to him, and very unlike anything Remus owns It’s laying spread out enough he can see the patterns of it, depictions of the magical tales his dad used to tell him to get him to sleep at night.A strong urge to steal his blanket back comes over him, and he reaches out to touch it, soothing at the comforting softness of it. But before he can take it, a thought stills him: the moon.----In the week before a full moon in second year, James' blanket goes missing. Then one of Sirius' pillows. Then one of Peter's. James investigates.
Relationships: Remus Lupin & James Potter, Sirius Black & Remus Lupin & Peter Pettigrew & James Potter
Series: Harry Potter (series) Fics [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1799116
Kudos: 57





	a single truth

**Author's Note:**

> hello!! I've been sitting on this fic for like. a week. and I'm tired of looking at it tbh. so I've decided to just go ahead and post it!! 
> 
> this is technically a fic about nesting, but really it's more about James being observant and worrying about his friends. there will be no heats/smut/etc in this fic as they're only meant to be 12 years old here. 
> 
> title is very dramatic considering the "truth" it's referring to. it's from "I Bet My Life" by Imagine Dragons -- "I've told a million lies but now I tell a single truth / There's you in everything I do"

It’s a week before the full moon.

This isn’t something James used to pay much attention to, because while he finds the moon as pretty and incomprehensible as the next person, it’s never really affected him before. But now—now he’s keeping close track of it, watching as it gets bigger and bigger in the night sky. Counting the days down until it becomes full.

He isn’t the only one. Sirius and Peter know of—and share—his suspicions, and so they peek upwards too, and carefully don’t look over to Remus afterward because James scolded them about being much too obvious. Then there’s Remus himself, who watches anxiously only to turn around and lie when they ask if he’s alright, saying he’s only nervous about this-or-that class or this-or-that prank.

James knows better. Maybe even knows the truth, though he’s trying to remind himself that he can’t know for sure unless he asks.

Except, asking is…not an option, he’s decided grimly. If they’re wrong, who knows how Remus will react, or what he’ll have to say to explain what’s really going on. If they’re right, then all they’ll have done is corner their friend and make him reveal something private about himself that he’s clearly hiding from them. And maybe James is a little scared of the truth, no matter what it may be—it’s easier to pretend nothing is happening at all, that his friend isn’t going through this cycle of illness and pain, when there’s no real proof. No confirmation.

Still, sometimes it's on the tip of James's tongue and he almost does it. Just opens his mouth and asks. He almost thinks Remus somehow knows what he's thinking. He'd caught James looking at him last week, sitting in the common room together, Remus with a thin, sharp scratch along his jaw, moving like an old man, like his ribs were lined with bruises. He'd looked—afraid, almost, before Sirius had distracted him with a stupid joke. He hadn't looked back at James, after that. Like he couldn't meet his gaze. Not for a long time.

So no, James doesn’t ask. But he thinks about it a lot.

Really, the only proof they have is that Remus acts differently before and after a full moon, and spends the night and next day in the Hospital Wing. He could just be sick—though when James asked Mary, she said Muggles don’t usually get sick like that. Not unless there’s something wrong with their “immune system”, which James doesn’t know very much about.

“Tell him I hope he feels better,” she’d said, a hand to her chest, a sympathetic look in her eye that reminded James of his mum.

“I will,” James had replied, concern for his friend battling in his chest with the pride of being given this message. He’d gone and told Remus right away, and hadn’t even laughed at the way Remus flushed and snapped at him.

But to bring this back to the point—it’s a week before the full moon. James has already noticed the change in Remus’ mood, and this morning he’d been feeling so unwell, he hardly ate any of his breakfast at all. It’s a Saturday, so when they were done, he went back to their dorm room and back to sleep. Sirius had gone to the library, Peter alongside him, for some kind of tutoring session from the fourth years.

James walks around the grounds for a while, practicing some spells by himself. Lunch comes and goes with an appearance from Remus, and after, he goes up to the room, fancying a nap himself. He tiptoes around Remus’ bed to get to his own and soon finds himself staring down at the mess of his mattress, wondering where on earth his summer quilt—hand-stitched by his mum, infused with charms to keep it cool and smelling very much like home—has gone.

He has four blankets, in truth—the summer quilt, the winter quilt (also from his mum), the standard Hogwarts sheets, and his baby blanket, because he’s slept with it his whole life and isn’t about to stop now. The last is still folded up beneath his pillows, the standard set tucked into the mattress neatly as it should be, and the winter quilt sitting out where he left it earlier with the intention of switching it with the summer quilt. 

Autumn is coming, and a chill too, and this morning he’d told the others about his plan to put the summer quilt away until the next semester. Sirius had joked about maybe stealing it—he’d had to send back the green silk he’d brought with him last year, and has slept with the regular sheets ever since—and James hadn’t minded it too much. Though he’s not sure when his friend would’ve had time to do it, he shrugs and goes to look anyway, again tiptoeing as he gets closer to Remus’ bed.

But there’s nothing there, everything as orderly as Sirius can manage to make it. No summer quilt. Just to be sure, James checks Peter’s bed as well, and again—nothing.

Feeling a bit frustrated, he returns to his own bed and spends the next hour searching every spot it could’ve possibly gone—he checks his trunk and his shelves and under the bed. He checks the small hidden space between the bed frame and the wall, and does the same for Sirius’s and Peter’s as well. Contemplating that maybe Sirius is just having him on and has somehow shrunken it, he searches all the hidden spots he can access in their room, the bathroom, even the hallway and common room. 

Maybe he’s being silly. Actually, he knows he is. But the quilt was a present from his mum, all of his favorite colors wrapping up into scenes from his favorite tales, and every time he’s gotten homesick in the past year and a half, he’s been able to cuddle up with it and be reminded of his parents, and how much they love him. He doesn’t want to have lost the blanket, much less for someone to have  _ stolen  _ it, and can’t imagine what he’ll say to his mum about it. She probably won’t be upset, will probably advise that he try Accio-ing it, but he  _ is  _ upset, even if it’s stupid to be. 

Sirius and Peter come up before he can decide it is worth waking Remus over. When they hear of James’ plight, they help look as well, but it’s no use. His quilt is gone.

“Maybe the elves have it,” Peter suggests comfortingly, and James can tell he’s not only saying it because he wants to stop searching. Peter can be oddly good at soothing when he wants to be.

“Maybe,” James allows, though it seems far more likely that someone has—for whatever reason—stolen it. It’s probably for a prank, the Slytherins cooking something up to humiliate them. But then, wouldn’t they have taken his baby blanket? Or the winter quilt, which had been much easier to grab?

“Come on, mate,” Sirius says, clapping him on the shoulder. “There’s nothing for it right now. Let’s go play some Exploding Snap, huh?”

Quietly, he nods, and the three of them leave the dorm, Sirius shutting the door carefully behind them. Trying to get his mind to other things, he hopes that their fourth friend will be able to get out of bed soon. 

Thankfully, Remus does join them for dinner later on in the day but doesn’t react at all when Peter tells him about James’ missing blanket. Quite unlike him, James notes—usually, he has some kind of advice to give, or a comforting word, or a scold about there being more important things—but chalks it up to the moon. 

That night, he sleeps under the winter quilt, his baby blanket folded up in his arms and under his head, and dreams of home. In it, Mum pats his cheek and says, “It’s alright, love. You’ll find it’s closer than you think,” and then they sit and eat Dad’s cookies and talk about things he can’t remember. All the while, the moon shines brightly outside the windows, and somehow, James revels in it rather than fearing it.

In the morning, weak sunlight filters in, illuminating the room. James and Sirius have their bed curtains open all the way, Peter’s are somewhat shut, and as usual, Remus’ are shut up tight. More importantly, Sirius is missing a pillow.

He sits on his bed, knees tucked underneath him, facing where he should have three of them, but only has two. His face has fallen naturally into a narrow-eyed, thin-lipped stare, very reminiscent of his mother, though James recognizes it as his thinking expression (and will never, ever tell him about that second bit).

“Maybe it’s fallen to the floor?” He can’t see it anywhere between them, but maybe it’s on the other side, between Sirius and Remus.

Sirius shakes his head. As far as James knows, he’s got no real attachment to the pillows other than the color of the cases (red and gold, of course, so different from black and green), and so it’s not surprising when after a few minutes, he shrugs and moves on. At breakfast—which Remus attends, feeling a bit better if the fact that he cleans his plate has anything to say about it—they joke about there being a black hole hiding in their room, taking only one thing at a time and only from the beds. Peter laughs, “Glad I’m not next then,” with a playful shove to Remus’ arm.

“Heh, yeah,” he says, looking down at the table, his face blank. 

“What d’you think it’ll take?” Sirius asks, not bothering to swallow until he’s done talking. James know he only does it because if his mum knew, she would drop dead from pure rage and embarrassment. Anything that can elicit that reaction, Sirius decided last year, is a good thing. James agrees, even if he himself eats with his mouth shut.

Remus shrugs and shoves a piece of toast in his mouth, looking anywhere but at Sirius.

James, sensing that he should, changes the subject.

The next day, Remus reports nothing missing, dutifully showing them his bed, which looks as it always does—a blanket from his parents, the Hogwarts sheets, three standard pillows. James thinks he sees a flash of something—something green, a similar shade to his quilt—in the space between the wall and the bed frame, but then Remus adjusts his pillow and hides it. He makes plans to find out what it could be, but he gets derailed quickly—at breakfast, Marlene and Dorcas ask him to practice some flying with them when they all have a free period, and that’s not something he can turn down. Not when they’re both on the Quidditch team and also  _ third-year girls _ . Sirius pats him on the back encouragingly and only laughs a little at how his ears go red.

Classes are boring, especially the ones where he already knows everything, and in between them and the afternoon with the girls, he and Peter play a prank on some older Slytherin kids. Then the practice lasts longer than he’d thought it would, and then it’s dinner time, and Remus is all moody again, glaring at his second helping and chewing his lip and not speaking.

When they return to the dorm, Remus slips right to his bed, shuts the curtains, and effectively makes it impossible for James to find out anything about that flash of green.

Nothing happens the next day either except that James and Sirius get detention for goofing off in Potions, and Remus nearly bites Peter’s head off for joking about how much he’s been hiding lately—which he  _ has _ . James can joke and exaggerate about how private Remus is, but it’s never been like this before, literally hiding from them all and hardly interacting except when he has to. After James and Sirius defend Peter, Remus apologizes profusely, tears shining in his eyes. It makes James uncomfortable so he jokes about how school is getting to all of them, and carefully says nothing about wolves or the full moon coming in four days. 

Remus wipes his eyes and apologizes again and they all move past it quickly.

It’s the next morning that the mysterious black hole strikes again, taking one of Peter’s pillows this time, one he swears he had when he went to sleep.

“I thought those elves moved quicker than this,” he grumbles at breakfast, his cheeks a little ruddy. “It should all be washed and returned to us by now.”

“I’ll go yell at them,” Sirius offers sincerely, even though they all know that it can’t actually be one of the elves behind it. “Teach them not to take a pure-blood’s stuff.”

Remus stabs violently at his third sausage of the morning, the sound of his fork scraping against the china quite piercing. James winces, glancing towards Lily and Mary and the others, and smiling sheepishly at their irritated looks.

Sirius freezes, and then says what he always says when he slips up and repeats something he’s heard his mother say: “Curse it all, I didn’t mean that.”

“Of course not,” Remus says, very snottily.

_ The moon _ , James reminds himself,  _ it must be the moon _ . He’s been reading up on werewolves and though just about every single bit of information he’s found has been contradictory, it’s generally accepted that the closer they are to shifting, the worse their attitudes get. Not that James can blame them, exactly. It must be painful to shift. He wants to ask if it does, but keeps quiet, watching Sirius’ face contort with guilt and annoyance.

“I was just trying to comfort Peter,” Sirius says, matching Remus’ tone. James can see in his face he feels bad for what he said—he hates to sound like his Mother, and hates to hurt Remus’ feelings—but of course, he’s not going to back down. Neither of them ever do. “Sorry, won’t do it again.”

Peter looks between them, setting his fork down. He always tries to break up their arguments at first, and it never works. “Wait—”

“That’s a real interesting way to do it, Sirius,” Remus shoots back. “You gonna teach me not to talk back to an oh-so-important  _ pure-blood _ ?”

Sirius’ mouth drops open, a scoff immediately filling the air. Regret blooms in Remus, obvious in the heavy frown that settles over his face, but he doesn’t take his words back. James tries to prepare himself for what is surely to be a long day.

They argue all morning. James has Pete sit with Sirius in their classes, and meets the betrayed stares of all three of his friends head-on. He stays quiet, letting Remus take the lead and interjecting where he needs to. It’s—odd, not messing around with Sirius, not being the one in charge, but somehow he can tell it makes Remus feel better. By the end of the first class, he’s calmed down a lot, making little jokes that have James giggling like mad. But it doesn’t last, the bickering starting up all over again in the hallway. Eventually, he and Peter just let them go at it, but he still watches carefully, not wanting either of them to go too far.

They have a free period after lunch, and while Sirius goes down to the lake with Peter and Mary and some other Gryffindors, and Remus to the library to sulk, James fancies a nap. Apparently wrangling friends is more exhausting than he’d thought. 

The dorm is empty when he gets in, the air quiet and a bit stale. Their beds are as they left them this morning—James and Peter’s messy, Sirius’ made up as much as he ever bothers to do so, and Remus’ curtained off. But he’s obviously not in there, and by the way the week’s looked, this is going to be James’ best chance to snoop.

He doesn’t exactly tiptoe to the bed—that would be silly—but he does step carefully, feeling like Remus could come bursting in at any moment. And, well, he could. Can. At any second.

Clearly, it’s best if James does this quickly.

Pulling back the curtains, he doesn’t find the neat bed he’s come to expect from Remus. No, it’s just the opposite—a complete mess, four pillows making something of a circle around the whole mattress, a fifth hidden haphazardly beneath James’ summer quilt. It’s unmistakably his, the mix of colors very familiar to him, and very unlike anything Remus owns It’s laying spread out enough he can see the patterns of it, depictions of the magical tales his dad used to tell him to get him to sleep at night. 

A strong urge to steal his blanket back comes over him, and he reaches out to touch it, soothing at the comforting softness of it. But before he can take it, a thought stills him: the moon.

In one of those books, he remembers Sirius reading aloud a passage that talked about the, as he said it, werewolfian sense of smell. Better even than a dog’s, much much better than a human’s. Is that what this is about? Is it about how they smell?

It doesn’t make much sense to him but what other options are there, really? That Remus is a thief like how some people say all werewolves are, or Remus is mad at them for some reason and this is his petty punishment, or it was some kind of accident and he’s spent the past few days ignoring them talking about it? No, it can’t be any of those. Remus is no thief, and if he was angry they would know, and if he wanted to punish them it wouldn’t be like this.

James leaves the quilt and shuts the curtains. He feels a little better knowing where it is, at least, and figures Remus won’t do anything to it except sleep with it. For some weird werewolfy reason, probably.

He lays in his own bed and contemplates, putting all the pieces together. This new discovery is a piece too, even if he doesn’t have a name for it. With each thought slotted with the others, it seems more and more likely that Remus  _ is  _ a werewolf. There’s simply no other explanation for it. He doesn’t know how he’s going to approach the topic with him, or if he’ll need more proof to fully convince Sirius and Peter, but the last missing piece for himself comes when Remus returns from the library.

James pretends to sleep, his body conveniently facing towards the rest of the room. Through mostly-shut eyelids, he watches as Remus tiptoes to his bed, hardly opening the curtains at all before he jerks back, his nose scrunched up. He turns to look at James, who immediately shuts his eyes fully, hoping it’ll be enough to fool Remus. 

It never has been before, and it’s not now either. 

“James?” 

He sounds…strained. A little angry still, like all his time alone in the library to calm down didn’t work.

James slowly opens his eyes, pretending to wake up even though he knows he’s caught. He sits up and stretches with a yawn, blinking at Remus. “Yeah?” 

Remus’ arms are crossed, his body half-turned towards him. “Did you touch my bed?”

“Yeah.” He thinks about adding an apology, but he doesn’t feel sorry, not really, and his dad has always told him not to apologize for things he shouldn’t be sorry for. Remus has never said anything about them not being allowed on his bed, so James doesn’t think he’s done anything wrong. Even if Remus does sound upset. It could be some privacy or personal space issue that James didn’t know about, or it could be a moon thing. Unsure, he explains, “I wanted to see if you had my quilt, and now I know you do.”

Hesitantly, he looks to his bed, then back to him. “And you didn’t take it back?”

James shrugs. He’s trying to play it cool, but Remus can probably see right through him. “Well, I just wanted to know where it went. If you need it, that’s fine. Just ask next time, alright?”

Remus blinks at him, gears moving in his mind. James can practically hear them. Awkwardly, Remus explains, “I…I’m sorry, I just got cold….”

He wants to ask about the pillows, because  _ being cold _ doesn’t explain those. Unless he’s sleeping under them somehow. Which is silly and weird and probably a werewolf thing. If it is a thing, anyway. But it could be, and he’s not ready to ask yet, so he doesn’t. He waves him off. “Don’t worry about it.”

Remus nods and gives him a searching look before slipping into his bed. James listens as he puts up locking and silencing charms, and lays back down, wondering again how he’s going to break it to the others.

The chance to doesn’t come up until the night of the full moon, when Remus is already off to “visit his mother”, which they’re all pretty sure means he’s gone to see Madame Pomfrey. James drags Sirius over to sit with Peter, all three of them eyeing the empty spaces where Remus should be. It’s always been like this on nights he’s gone, but it’s more glaring this time. He’s trying not to think about where Remus really is right now, what going to happen.

“I think we were right, boys,” James says with as much formality as he can manage. “I think Remus is a werewolf. In fact, I’m certain he is.”

“And what’s your proof?” Sirius asks skeptically, even though he was the one who came up with the idea in the first place.

Together, they rehash what they all know, all three chiming in with the different parts they know best about. When James explains about the pillows and quilt, they stare pensively at the offending bed like it’ll start speaking and explain why Remus did it. Even to James, who has never known a world without magic, finds this idea silly.

“You don’t suppose it’s a—a nesting thing, do you?” Peter asks.

“Like how dogs and cats do?” James thinks about this for a moment. It seems right, but… “Wait, don’t they only do that if they’re girls? And pregnant?”

“Remus isn’t pregnant,” Sirius bursts out, making an offended face. “Right? He can’t be.”

James allows, “It does seem unlikely.”

“Yeah, I think we’d know if there were any chances of it,” Peter says, shuddering a bit. “Don’t you?”

“Yes, definitely.”

“I hope so….” Sirius mumbles. 

After a few moments of silence in which James has mildly disturbing mental images of Remus somehow being pregnant, he shakes his head. Again taking on the tone of someone important and knowledgeable, he says, “It could be…that. Maybe it’s different for werewolves? I can’t see any other option that makes as much sense as this one.”

The others agree, but they still spend the next hour coming up with ridiculous ideas that could also explain it. It helps to focus on that rather than the moon, or wondering what their friend could be going through right that minute. By the time they have to lay down, they’ve decided they’ll ask Remus the next day if it’s all true. James isn’t sure how he’ll feel if it’s not—relief, but not because he’s scared or doesn’t want Remus to be a werewolf. Well, okay, he doesn’t. But more because he doesn’t think it’s very fun, and not because James is a bigot or anything. He likes Remus no matter what. He wants the best for him, is all, and vows to himself that he’ll do whatever he can to help his friend, no matter what.

They fall asleep uneasily that night, first retreating to their own beds but it isn’t long before Sirius gets up and joins James. Peter refuses their offer of a sleepover, but he’s the first up in the morning, suggesting they go to visit Remus before breakfast.

Quickly, all three of them get dressed, and on a whim, James grabs his summer quilt off Remus’ bed. 

Together, they hurry off to the Hospital Wing, and James puts on his best pleading face when Madame Pomfrey tries to turn them away.

“It’s okay,” Remus croaks from inside. He sounds awful, and concern clenches tightly in James’ chest. “They—they can come in. I want them to. Please, Madame.”

“Oh, fine. But only for a few minutes,” she says, threat clear in her tone. “He isn’t feeling well, and I won’t have you boys making it worse.”

They nod innocently and scurry past her. Remus is tucked away in a bed near her desk, partitions placed around the bed though James isn’t sure why. He’s pale and bruised, and there are bloody claw marks on his arm that James gets hardly a glimpse of before he’s hiding it away under the sheets. Clearing his throat (though it doesn’t really help), he says, with a false bravado James can recognize is a mimic of Sirius, “If—if this is about your stuff—”

“It’s not,” James reassures immediately. “We’re not upset about that.”

“We’re  _ curious _ ,” Sirius adds, “but not upset.”

“Curious?” Remus glances between them, his brows pulled down. 

“Yeah,” Peter says, nodding.

Sirius gets tired of waiting and goes to the bed, climbing up to sit on the edge by Remus’ knees. “About a few things, actually.”

“Like why I’m in here and not where I said I was?”

“Well,” Sirius drags out, sucking air through his teeth. He looks to James for help.

“We think we know why,” James cuts in, putting his hand on Peter’s shoulder and tipping his head up to show just how sure he is.

Remus meets his eyes head-on. It feels like a dare, which—this is not how James wanted this moment to feel like, he wanted to ease into it and be calm and let Remus know they weren’t going to run screaming but—but he can’t ever turn down a dare. 

“Yeah?” It doesn’t sound like he wants to hear the answer. Like he has to know or the not knowing will eat at him. Remus is always like that.

“Yeah.” And in a quieter voice, he leans in and says, with bravado and confidence and kindness, “We’re pretty sure you’re a werewolf.”

Remus drops the blanket he’d had wrapped up around his shoulders, his face somehow blanching even further. His breath catches painfully in his throat. That’s when James realizes he’s actually, really correct. That Remus is actually, really a werewolf. Every time he’s caught out, he loses his grip—and seeing it, James freezes, the truth settling into his consciousness more solidly. 

Sirius and Peter pick up on it too, and for a long moment, the four of them blink at each other, unsure what to say next. Reassurances, James thinks—they need to reassure him and comfort him and make sure they aren’t stepping over whole new boundaries that none of them know where are. He should ask, he knows that, but the words stick in his throat.

Then, Remus pulls at the blanket, hiding his arms again. He looks at each of them with hesitancy, a familiar sight for him but not usually aimed towards them anymore. “H—how did you—”

“You always leave on the full moons,” Sirius says, trying for casual. 

“And you always feel sick and get upset in the week leading up to one,” Peter adds.

“Were you nesting?” James blurts, feeling foolish and like he’s doing this all wrong, but too curious to stop himself. “Like, in your bed. Is that why you wanted our pillows and blankets?”

“It makes me feel—I like the way it reminds me of y—I mean, I get cold, I told you that already—but I’m not  _ preg _ —”

“Hey, hey,” Sirius soothes, awkwardly petting Remus’ shin once before Remus cringes in pain. Sirius snatches his hand away, looking stricken but still trying to help. “Look, it’s okay, we aren’t judging you or anything.”

Remus blinks at him. Out of nowhere, he asks, “Aren’t you scared of me?”

All at once, they say, “No!”

“We’ve kind of suspected for a while,” Peter admits, flushed. He always gets nervous when it comes time to express his emotions, and James pats his back in support. “It was a little weird at first, but… I’m not scared, I never was.”

“Neither were we,” Sirius says, with the full weight and confidence he embraces when something is particularly important. “You’re not scary, you’re…you’re just Remus.”

Remus makes a face like he doesn’t understand, mumbling, “Oh.” But James understands perfectly—he’s just Remus, intelligent and grumpy and terrible at lying. The scariest thing about him, as they’ve told him before, is his bedhead. 

“Yeah. So don’t worry about that.”

“And if you ever want to talk about it, we’re here for you,” James says. 

“Yeah,” Sirius and Peter echo sincerely.

Remus sniffles, his eyes welling up. Near silently, he says, “Thanks, guys.”

“I meant it, though,” James adds after a moment. Usually, when one of them cries, it makes him uncomfortable, but this time something more…content is welling up in his chest. He thinks that, as soon as he’s able, he’s going to give Remus a hug. “Next time you want my blanket, just ask, huh?”

Remus rolls his eyes before looking down at his lap. But James can see the corner of his mouth turning up, and he thinks—hopes—that maybe they’re doing alright.

**Author's Note:**

> rebloggable version coming soon!


End file.
